"It is evident that Pyongyang will not abandon its nuclear weapons as long as it sees itself directly threatened," Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the ministry’s non-proliferation and weapons control department, said at the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

"We are nonetheless convinced that existing tensions on the Korean Peninsula are caused not only by Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes, but also by an increased military activity in the North-East Asia of some regional and especially non-regional States," he said.

The Russian diplomat stressed the necessity of consolidated diplomatic efforts to settle the situation on the Korean Peninsula. "No minute should be lost. Otherwise the confrontation logic may become overwhelmingly dominant," he said. "Russia rejects the nuclear status of the DPRK. We do not accept nuclear tests conducted by Pyongyang and its defiance of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.".